We are born crying, but those cries signal the first stirring of language. Within a year or so, infants master the sound system of their language; a few years after that, they are engaging in conversations.
This remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire any human language—“the language faculty”—raises important biological questions about language, including how it has evolved.

Joëlle was commissioned by MIRA Festival to create a unique visual performance for Andy Stott’s first live show in Barcelona since releasing “Faith in Strangers”.

The show concept is loosely formed around feelings of despair and the sense of a broken world. I wanted to represent the view of earth in a distorted and deformed way which was still beautiful.
There are themes of insignificance and fragility and an element of things breaking down and building up again.
But there is also an element of hope, transformation and faith in humanity.

Therefore the sage is (like) a square which cuts no one (with its angles); (like) a corner which injures no one (with its sharpness). He is straightforward, but allows himself no license; he is bright, but does not dazzle.

The beginning of the emperor’s letter seemed very striking. It opened thus: “May all the gods and goddesses destroy me more miserably than I feel myself to be daily perishing, if I know at know at this moment what to write to you, Senators, how to write it, or what, in short, not to write.”